The EU response to the offer

Northern Ireland leaves the single market unless Stormont meets to vote to stay in

This is in accord with what both sides said in the referendum, that leaving the EU means leaving the single market and customs union at the same time.

It turns out these are the three key features of the proposals which the EU dislikes and now wishes to remove or water down.

The Prime Minister was right to say this offer represented still more UK concessions on other things and they should not expect more concessions . I recommend stressing the free trade offer within the letter, which could change the nature of the discussions, given the problems with the draft Withdrawal Agreement and costly and cumbersome so called transition period. .

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196 Comments

Anyone with any sense knows the EU wants to keep control of the UK, in one form or another. They have a choice now, this deal or no deal, but we need to reinforce the message that the UK is prepared to leave with no deal. This is being (deliberately) undermined by Remainers, in order to keep us under the EU thumb.

We want to be a sovereign self governing nation. Nothing less, nothing more.

Martin, Why would the UK have to pull out of NATO, the UN, all extradition and other international treaties? That doesn’t make any sense. In the first place choosing not to give up our sovereignty in one area does not preclude choosing to give up sovereignty in another area.

Secondly, as you have been told many times, the EU treaties are unlike other treaties, which are specific and limited. The EU treaties are “enabling” treaties, which allow the EU to impose extra new laws continuously, none of which the UK has signed up to (for the obvious reason that the new laws haven’t been made at the time of signing the treaty).

Utter nonsense. In NATO, sovereignty is maintained because members can withdraw their forces or their commitments at any time, as France did under De Gaul. Furthermore, the majority of European nations have continuously failed to maintain their commitments in spending and manpower to NATO, without serious penalties. NATO cannot fine members for non-performance. The same arrangement concerns your other examples. The EU insists on the surrender of sovereignty and the right to self-determination as the primary condition. of membership and is very quick to penalise those nations who try to buck the system.

I do always like to be reminded of LBJ insisting his man (Dean Acheson?) ask De Gaulle, when he demanded all US troops be removed from French soil, if he meant the ones in cemetries there, who met their ends liberating his country, as well.

Come off it Martin.
How can you say ” the EU has no say over immigration whatsoever”.
You are perfectly entitled to feel the EU is a wonderful thing but nonsensical comments like this don’t help your argument.

Mockbeggar, Sorry to be the harbinger of bad tidings but putting Boris’s proposal to a vote in the HoC is pointless because the HoC is Remain – they will vote down anything that is not Remain. The Remain HoC has no shame.

Boris cannot veto any extension offered by the EU because the UK “shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it” (TEU Art50/4).

Len Porridge, Yes we hate the EU ideology. It is yet another modern Western European attempt to recreate the Roman Empire but using bureaucracy and fake law instead of the cannons of Bonaparte, the machine guns of the Kaiser (Caesar), the tanks of Hitler’s “3rd” Reich, or the gulags of Lenin/Trotsky/Stalin/Khruschev (himself the butcher of Katyn).

A good point Mockbeggar among other interesting points in this blog over time which are never answered by JR even if the answer could be yes or no. This lack of info is most frustrating. Perhaps he just doesn’t know but doesn’t like to admit it.

Well Helena, I’m sure that Boris will request an extension if a deal has not been agreed. The EU do not have to grant it though- they can finally grow a back bone and refuse it as they don’t need the UK in the EU…. But what do you think they will do 🙂

The plain fact is that the EU is desperate to receive our vast financial contribution, without which they are in strife. The ‘Remainiac’ MPs seem happy to spend UK taxpayer money for the benefit of wealthy EU nations. Disgusting!

Indeed. But it is still unacceptable and it seems clear the EU will not agree anyway. Why would they with the appalling Benn/Grieve/Gauke/Bercow surrender/treachery bill in place and with Boris having no commons majority?

As expected, Ireland and the EU have poured cold water on this idea.
Our response should be OK then, we leave on WTO terms, and in accordance with the Belfast Good Friday Agreement (BGFA), we will manage with no checks on the border as we have already said we’d do, so we will not build any hard border infrastructure.
That’s it, over to you, Ireland and EU. You can ensure ther’ll be no hard border by doing something similar. It will be their choice to put up hard infrastructure if they wish, but they will carry the can for breaking the BGFA.

That is more or less what the UK government should have said nearly two years ago, when it was becoming clear even as a matter of public knowledge that the new Irish government under Leo Varadkar was set upon an absurd extreme and intransigent course.

“On the TV this morning it was stated that the UK government is “desperate” to move on to trade talks, but this would be vetoed by the Irish government unless the UK government committed to keeping the UK in both the Single Market and the Customs Union.

Apparently the latest threat on this matter has come from an Irishman who has forgotten that as an EU Commissioner he is supposed to be an impartial official faithfully serving the interests of the EU as a whole, not just those of his home country, a promise he made as part of his solemn oath of office.

Whatever delusions the Irish government may entertain there is no political possibility of the UK remaining in either the Single Market or the Customs Union after leaving the EU, so there is now clearly no point in the UK even trying to negotiate any “special and deep” trade deal with the EU. And of course there was never any justification for paying the EU a bribe just to get trade talks started.

So we should now say that rather than kowtow to the stupid destructive intransigence of the EU we will fall back on WTO trade rules and only seek agreements on the practical or technical aspects of continuing trade.

That would do us some economic harm, although nowhere near as much as portrayed by the Remoaners, and it would do the other countries more economic harm, albeit it would be spread around among them, but on most projections the country which would suffer by far the greatest economic damage would in fact be Ireland.”

Ireland is circa 1.9% of EU GDP. It has become a holding warehouse for US multinationals’ cash, with a small country attached. There is no way the EU and Trumpland will allow Ireland to suffer. And who do you think will get the blame if it does?

Len Gruel/Grinds/etc, A deal?? The EU has refused to negotiate a trade deal, and the UK Parliament accepted that over 2 years ago. The UK is subject to EU law which has primacy over UK law. EU law says that we can leave without a withdrawal agreement. And what use is the Benn Surrender Act anyway if the EU does not offer an extension?

Martin, The responsibility for “trouble” will be those who make “trouble”, and no other. And make no mistake the EU empire is our enemy, as they have plainly shown over the last 4 years (arguably the last 47 years).

In the scenario you outline where we refuse to put up a border – a random country with an axe to grind against Britain – Argentina for example – could take the UK to the WTO.

The WTO has made clear that although its rules do not require a hard border it will investigate claims by any of its members who say their interests are damaged by the trade advantages the UK gains from having no hard border.

The Republic of Ireland has (like the UK) said it will not create a hard border.
Do you think the EU army or the mythical WTO army will invade and build a wall?
Perhaps the remainers herd of Unicorns can be asked for an answer.

We’ll settle for a personal border that exists only is so far as that a person who rocks up here via any EU border can no longer proclaim themselves British and can no longer claim associated rights of citizenship and can be deported automatically.

Otherwise what you have is a free for all. Destruction of border is destruction of nation.

You may like destruction of nation. Well put in it a manifesto and stand for office on it and see how far you get. Until 2016 all federalist MPs were reticent about it.

The WTO just last Friday made it perfectly clear that WTO rules do not require any hard border or indeed set any border infrastructure rules , so another country say Argentina which is in South America will not be affected by a soft Irish Border .

Of course if you still deludedly believe that goods in transit only do so if hordes of people in blue uniforms look in the back of every lorry then I guess your mistake is just pure ignorance

Tabulazero, The EU’s borders are for the EU to manage. UK borders are for the UK to manage. Since the EU refuses to do a trade deal, and will not negotiate sensibly on a withdrawal agreement, who else is to blame but the EU?

Tabulazero, Where and when has the UK asked the EU to dismantle its single market, and Eire to let go of the peace process? Quotes from the UK government as evidence please.

UK businesses selling into the USA must conform to the USA’s single market. And doing so does not dismantle the USA’s single market. Likewise selling into the EU (including into its province of Eire), when the UK has left doesn’t.

The “peace process” was not a transfer of part of the UK’s sovereignty to Eire. So the UK leaving the EU does not mean Eire (or the UK) lets go of the peace process.

It is a legal fact that the Article Fifty process leads to leaving all the institutions of the European Union, including those that you state.

Remain pointed that out as a warning to the seriousness of leaving.

However, as I recall, the Leave campaigns did not make that an objective of leaving, as they talked of a range of post-exit relationships ranging from Owen Paterson’s EEA model to Farage’s oft-trumpeted Norway and Switzerland models.

The key point is that the ballot paper itself was absolutely silent on what the post-exit relationship with the European Union should be, so there is no pressure, moral or legal, preventing a sovereign Parliament from deciding that.

Reply I made it clear pre the referendum we would be leaving the single market and customs union, Remain stated endlessly that is what it would entail and the Conservative Manifesto of 2017 said so.

Thank you John, yes, but that is a simple matter of fact, of what Article Fifty involves.

There is nothing whatsoever preventing a sovereign Parliament from replicating parts of the arrangements currently enjoyed with the European Union, without membership, subject to mutual agreement, however. They could take effect just one second after the UK had left those institutions if that suited, and your manifesto would be discharged.

The ballot paper was silent on the matter, and no party promised not to do this.

You are correct, Martin. We are in a terrible mess today because the Leave campaign in 2016 refused ever to define what should be the nature of our relationship with the EU in the future. And there are many possibilities, ranging from Norway to no deal. A terrible mess – but entirely the fault of the Leave campaign

William Jones, The official Leave campaign was quite clear that we would enjoy recovering control of our sovereignty, laws, courts, trade policy, fish, and money. All the main politicians, including Cameron, Gove, Hammond and Johnson, confirmed this over and over.

We are not (yet!) a communist country, so we did not (and do not) want a USSR-style “10 year plan” for exactly what the UK would be like after escaping from your EU ideology. Leave means abrogating the EU treaties so the EU no longer has control over the UK. And that’s it. What the people will want after we Leave must be up to us, not some rigid “plan”.

Indeed, I recall Sir John saying clearly and specifically that we might have to trade on WTO terms if the EU would not come to a sensible deal, but that would not be a problem. The Remain side stated time and again that leaving meant leaving the Single Market, they meant that as a threat I’m sure but I took it as a promise.

ECJ subordination still remain’s. That’s unacceptable, utterly unacceptable. The UK, its people and its judicial authority should not be sacrificed on the altar of body that is not judicial in nature but a mere political extension of the EU whose fundamental aim is to limit the actions of member state governments

As somebody suggested yesterday, if Boris turned up with a signed, blank cheque and a white flag, the EU would still not be happy. They do not want us to leave the EU!

We need to leave, no deal, before they will get the message that we are serious and determined.

In the papers today, it says that Veradhkar thinks the British public want to remain! They will not stop being difficult, intransigent and pushing until they get our second referendum where we are intended to vote remain!

Public opinion amongst the four hundred and fifty million people of the rest of the European Union seems to be shifting in favour of being rid of the UK as soon as feasible, as Macron for himself has suggested too.

Depends who you think “they” constitutes.M Macron probably wants UK/US influence removed from Europe-he’s a convert to the Eurasia concept which is anathema to the Atlanticists;he told his diplomatic corps at the end of August that Eurasia is coming,if not here and that France must be a part of it to ensure that it has a vaguely European context and not wholly Asiatic in nature-Russia is key to this(Russia is “deeply European” he insists).

The EU and Japan signed a connectivity agreement last week to bypass China’s “New Silk Road”.What lies between Japan and the EU?Russia!Who controls the most direct trade routes between the two(both land-the Trans-Siberian-and maritime-Northern Sea Route?Russia!Japan’s Abe is desperate to sign a treaty with Russia-as his legacy-and participate in Eurasian integration(he had to sit by and watch as President Putin and Indian PM Modi signed three dozen development deals at the Vladivostock Far East Economic Summit last month.But Russia won’t give him what he wants unless he downgrades security relations with the US.

Frederica Mogherini’s Special Advisor was at the well attended annual conference of Russia’s premier foreign affairs think tank,the Valdai Club,on Monday,tweeting breathlessly:”Always interesting to look at the world from Valdai Club in Sochi.Kicking off discussion on global systemic changes with Chinese,Indian,Turkish,Japanese and Lebanese perspectives.Different views but all agree on end of US hegemony.”

I am not privy to every clause and comma, but from the outside it appears to be getting a bit cluttered and even more so if the EU are allowed to meddle with it. KISS would be my approach, keep it simple stupid.

Leave on or before 31st October. Present the EU with a draft FTA and a proposal of continuity with the mutually agreed invoking of Art 24 of GATT. As the Northern Irish seem to find Boris’s proposals acceptable it is down to the Southern Irish and the EU to accept it or not. trade with Eire is only important to the Southern Irish. It is make up your mind time, the EU have 27 days max. If they prevaricate and revert into our rules or nothing mode that they have been in for the past three years then it is WTO rules as of 31st October. When reality dawns in the EU they can then come back, if industrial pressure in Europe demands it, and talk about an FTA and any other arrangements they may wish to retain. No access to our territorial waters and no demands for the apocryphal £39 Billion should be entertained.

And what of the rest ? What of the ECJ ? What of freedom of movement and the fact that the EU seeks to make its citizens superior to us in our own country. What of defence and security with regard to PESCO ?

Leave means Leave. A independent sovereign nation whose only contact with the EU is with regards to trade.

Reply Yes, the WA has more problems than just the backstop as I have always pointed out.

I think Sir John’s position is that the UK offer is still rubbish from a UK perspective, but because it’s also rubbish from an EU perspective, there is no chance of agreement, and therefore no risk of Sir John having to vote for something awful. As someone previously suggested, the UK’s negotiations are a sham. If only all these contortions led inexorably to a No Deal rather than a further extension…

But listening to MP’s, including the DUP ones, they seem fine with the tweaks to the Backstop, and only the Backstop in the WA. We the British people, as witnessed on your site, are not fooled by this, we can see what the government is trying to do and do not like it.

Thank you for your optimism it helps prevent people like me descending further into despond. It would be wonderful to prove the doomsayers wrong if we were to leave without WA handcuffs and see that things will be fine after some initial turbulence. It would make Mr Corbyn look an utter pessimist with his talk of a ‘race to the bottom’. What a silly phrase when our own Withdrawal Act embodies the continuation of all existing EU laws.

What they now appear to be trying to do is 3-fold, to kick the can further down the road to delay departure/overturn the result, to claw back the control their WA gave them and to keep getting a £1b a month from the UK while we are stuck in this idiotic never-ending non-negotiation saga.

I can’t say I’m overly impressed with the PM’s proposal, as it is not a clean break and I sincerely hope he keeps his word, that this is a final offer and will not cede any of control he has removed.

We will still have the transition period, following EU rules and diktats.
Presumably we will still be shovelling over £39B and paying £1B per month during transition.
What about the CFP and CAP?
What about the armed forces and security?

It sounds like the May surrender treaty is alive and well with tweaks to the backstop.

The surrender treaty is indeed alive and well, but fear not, for no vote will be forthcoming on it this side of November. Expect another extension, with either a GE or referendum to follow. Could the opposition parties give BJ the GE he wants? Seems unlikely, but when you stop to consider what the Tory Brexit policy will be…

Sir John, you and your party want a GE. Would the policy be to pursue a No Deal/WTO, or seek a mandate to negotiate a new deal? Or in other words, Brexit Party Lite with trust issues, or dither, delay and probably a BRINO. Or no deal. Or another GE. Or a secomd referendum. In other words, God knows what.

Suddenly, giving BJ what he wants doesn’t seem half as bad from a Remainer perspective. (Still think the second referendum is on balance the more likely option though.)

Sir John,
The government’s information leaflet distributed during the referendum campaign did not specifically state that the UK would leave the Single Market it simply stated that no third country has ever gained access to the Single Market without accepting its rules and paying into it. It did not mention the customs union at all. The UK has not given any great concessions, this is Boris preparing for a manufactured “me against the Remain establishment” showdown. The EU’s red lines are that we pay for the financial commitments we signed up to, respect the integrity of the Single Market which has brought prosperity to its members, respect the GFA and protect the rights of EU citizens. Hardly unreasonable.

“The EU’s red lines are that we pay for the financial commitments we signed up to”. Well the EU got an extra 3 years after the referendum, just how many years obligations did we sign up to, I thought it was 5 so that only leaves 2 years left now.

It is a pragmatic offer but should be non negotiable. Numerous comments by the main players have used the “basis for negotiation” line – this is unacceptable. It is not Brexit as true Leavers envisaged but we have reached the political stage when the gloves need to come off. I much doubt that BJ will prove he is a true Leaver. As events have proved the CP is a Remain party and will suffer unless it delivers the vote of 17.4m.

Your second point is an outrageous way to con people. Both points should be in one sentence to comply with referendum promises of leaving single market and customs union. The whole of the UK was going to leave the single market and customs union, no difference for N.Ireland.

How about the other faults with the servitude plan you highlighted on this blog? They appear to be missed off, why?

How about ECJ, give away tax money for nothing, Military etc. Why is,it,expected the U.K. Give concessions and jump when EU says, why not an equal negotiation between two equal partners as we were first told it would be? I smell a hefty fat a con in your blog acting in stark contrast to your previous views expressed here. Please explain your change of mind.

Reply You are wrong. I still hold the same views re WA and FTA as this makes clear.

I have the upmost respect for John Redwood and believe him to be a decent and honorable person but he has changed his position in a rather subtle but evident way. I see little point in trying to deny that.

Johnson’s proposals are a travesty and undermines trust but the upside will be oxygen for the BP’s claim of surrender by the political class. If this translates into the demise of the poisonous Labour party that I can accept it in the short term

Reply I have not changed my position which is we must leave on 31 October and table a FTA

Reply to reply by JR:
I believe that you have changed interpretations/meanings of things that were quite clearly expressed. This sadly seems to be a characteristic of many politicians, but I had honestly felt that you were not one of those.

If N.Ireland acts under EU single market rules like agri products, food etc ECJ applies does it not? This is not taking back control is it?

Please also tell us about money for nothing including EIB assets UK holds and is giving away do nothing, military under EU control etc. Tell us how the 40 horrors of Mayhab’s servitude plan do not apply at all under Johnson’s proposal.

If I am wrong then explain why you have point one under UK and point two under Great Britain? To be fair and balanced and all that.

Am afraid you’re going to be disappointed if you think the Irish are going to fold- fold to what? some DUP / Erg /Cummings crazy plan for the island of Ireland..No no..that’s not going to happen..as you will see very shortly

HarveyG, Eire may be the useful idiot for the EU, but neither controls the UK after we have left. And every demonstration of intransigence from the EU (and Eire) means we are less and less inclined to regard them as allies, let alone friends. We’re not going to forget this.

But if Northern Ireland leaves the EU customs union that will mean customs checks on the island of Ireland, and according to the latest Remoaner lie the UK government has pledged that there will be no customs checks anywhere on the island of Ireland:

And Boris Johnson has even been goaded into upping that to “at any other place”:

“… the proposals we are putting forward do not involve physical infrastructure at or near the border or indeed at any other place.”

Which if taken literally would mean, for example, that if at any time the existing customs facilities at Larne proved inadequate to cope with the flow of goods being imported from Great Britain across the newly created customs border in the Irish Sea then not only would it be impermissible to expand the facilities at Larne, it would also be impermissible to expand the facilities on the other side to take some of the additional burden.

And I suppose that if the Irish government shares that attitude then the Republic could have similar problems with all its point of entry for goods, there should be no customs checks and no new infrastructure so that they can cope with increased workload.

As I said in a comment posted yesterday evening but not yet published:

“That is how this all started, with the spectre of a return to manned customs posts on the border crossings interfering with the free movement of goods between Northern Ireland and the Republic; but now that spectre has been laid it is being resurrected in a new form on the false basis that in some way the whole island of Ireland is one big border and there can be no customs checks anywhere on the island.”

Leave won 64:36 by constituency and until we have a HoC in alignment with the referendum result the EU will refuse to negotiate and only offer terms which Mr. Verhofstadt’s staff have described as “colonial”.

Are we still liable to pay yearly contributions and what about our fisheries, armed forces and vat etc? I would like the EU to turn this down so we can leave and I mean LEAVE! I have read in the media that the ERG are ready to sign this ‘deal’. We need more scrutiny before that and the public need to know EXACTLY what is being signed.

Suddenly the EU is looking down both barrels as they stare into the headlights of democracy which they smear as populism, the same populism that Blair and Brown /Balls signed us democratically up to without asking us.
Suddenly they are losing it and want to blame us for voting out.
How nice the EU are….

Harvey,
Flag, anthem, ambassadors, embassies, President, Parliament, courts, it’s own currency, plans for expansion, plans for an armed force, plans for extended common taxation, budget deficit control over Euro currency nations.
Actually more of an Empire than a country.

The only proposal anyone has advanced which (i) prevents a hard border in Ireland and (ii) avoids the UK being in a customs union with the EU is the backstop. Accept the backstop and we move on with a deal. Reject it, and there’s no deal and the UK PM is legally obliged to ask the EU for an extension. it is that simple

There is no need to talk about the border till we have settled the trading arrangements. Then we will know what is needed.

The EU hoodwinked Mrs May into the backstop by pretending they were concerned about terrorism. You may remember Major and Blair together with their sidekicks, threatened terrorism if we voted to leave. This was disgraceful and the appalling behaviour hasn’t gone away.

The backstop is nothing less than annexation of part of our country, in such a way that we continue to pay for it. Herr Selmayr’s “price for Brexit.”

Parliament has refused to accept the Withdrawal Agreement three times and the EU has said it will not alter its position.
The Speaker has said he will not allow the Withdrawal Agreement to be considered a fourth time.
The EU may well refuse an extension as there isn’t a prospect of this deadlock altering.
We have had one extension and it has achieved nothing.
A second extension wouldn’t be any different.

Nearly every other border in the world uses advanced 21st century technology to maintain integrity of markets whilst allowing frictionless trade . Why is the EU insisting in living in the mid 2oth century ?

“Boris Johnson should abandon Brexit talks with the EU and go all guns blazing for no-deal, veteran Tory MP John Redwood has told i. Ahead of the Conservative party conference which starts this weekend, the senior Brexiteer piled pressure on the Prime Minister, warning he can’t support a revised version of Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement.” (i)

Let’s cut to the chase. The EU will have financial difficulties once our £1 billion per month cease. They have been delighted with our extensions and would no doubt readily agree to more. Why did it take us so long to issue the Article 50 letter. I wonder if we left with no deal would we NOT have to pay the £39 billion. We should perhaps threaten to “review” this figure if the EU continue to be difficult. We should let them know forcefully that there are many issues in addition to the backstop that are unacceptable. There should be NO further extension.

I think the financial equation is hugely important to the EU. I think for them the quid pro quo of May’s deal, awful as it was for us, was likely continued tarrif payments in perpetuity. Boris offers nothing like that financial inducement so I predict, esp now no deal is banned by law, that the EU won’t be taking his proposals very serioisly.

I should stress that I voted leave in the expectation of a “no deal” type exit (after all everyone told us we would leave the customs union and single market).

Accusing the EU of “unscrupulous deceit and sheer arrogance” is a hilarious comment! The UK is voluntarily leaving the EU Club; demanding the EU Club changes its rules to accommodate the UK’s leaving demands. Just how arse backwards can leavers get this?

Acorn, Given the multiple lying by Remain fanatics in the UK, and the intransigence, deceit and arrogance of the EU, it is no wonder that we wanted to leave. And we still do – even many Remain voters are now fed up with the Remain position. No one is demanding the EU changes its rules – just to stop applying them to the UK when we leave!

Oh dear. We aren’t asking the EU to change anything. Its the poor little EU that cant seem to grasp simple technical solutions to maintaining its market integrity whilst allowing the kind of frictionless trade enjoyed around the rest of the world. But what else do you expect from a technically illiterate, backward looking trump like protectionist market

In consideration of the approaching industrial recession world wide, and(according to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard), one in services too, surely now would be the time to leave with no-deal(after all, the EU is nothing significantly more than a customs union), as deflation will begin to ‘rule the day’. The theoretical effects of taxes imposed on demand and supply equilibrium, will see supply exceeding demand, pressuring prices to fall, and mitigating the inflationary fall out from tariffs, which large suppliers like VW will have to swallow?

No one expects a simple answer on this complex issue, but I for one cannot fathom out whether the Boris plan is to engage with the EU (but know that the EU will disagree), or, use the threat of WTO deal to drag them to the table to bring in the fudge re-draft of the WA (hoping that the Remainiac alliance will support it).
Being told off by the Irish Republic is getting tiresome. Can’t wait to hear the EU offer another extension to the delay because they are shaking in their boots other this

“Can’t wait to hear the EU offer another extension to the delay because they are shaking in their boots other this”

No, all they want is to be rid of us. Not just after the Brexit vote but for years before. They had become sick and tired of our constant whining and demands for special treatment and opt outs. Cameron was just the last in a long line but his bluff was called.

Seeing we were johnny come latelies who begged to be allowed to join at a time when we were known as the sick man of Europe our behaviour is regarded as deeply ungrateful.

If you really believe that 27 EU members, among whom are the world’s wealthiest and most successful, are ‘shaking in their boots’ because of our leaving you are sadly mistaken. Our politicians are dragging it out because they fear we might return to the bad old days of being overtaken by the other world economies without our EU membership.

Margaret H, We weren’t “johnny-come-latelies” unfortunately. We’ve been a province of your EU empire for 47 years, far longer than most provinces.

Now that the EU has ruined our manufacturing industry they might want to get rid of us as you claim. However you’re forgetting that the EU slavers after our free £10bn gift every year. And the EEC even invented a “fisheries policy” to steal our fish. So I suspect you’re wrong. As usual.

Our manufacturing industry was ruined by Margaret Thatcher in response to the ruinous strikes by miners and other overweening unions who held the country to ransom. It was replaced by a service and finance industry and we stopped manufacturing things.

And our fishermen sold their allocations for a quick profit rather than consider the long term implications.

It has become the norm in this country to blame everybody else for what was mostly self inflicted stupidity and greed.

Reply More manufacturing was lost in the 1970s under Labour when we joined the EU and faced an onslaught of continental tariff free competition for the first time. Mrs Thatcher attracted substantial new investment into cars for example, so the industry halved in the first ten years of EEC membership and started growing again under Margaret.

What may be a convenient shorthand one day will become a demand for a SM contribution the next. What the PM’s letter actually said is that NI will maintain regulatory alignment with the EU SM.

That’s rather different – keeping trading rules aligned while being outside that market is rather different to being withing the SM.

I would also suggest that NI has a vote not only every 4 years, but an option to have a vote whenever it believes that there is a significant change to the SM rules.

I hope all this is a smokescreen heading for no deal, with the EU and remoaners clearly being at fault. Having a customs border inside the UK is not good.

However, seeing Hale’s latest antics reported on Guido (standing in front of a presentation saying “Spider woman brings down Hulk” while referring positively to “girly swots”) suggests that any remoaner legal challenge is likely to succeed – it seems that woman has dropped any attempt to disguise her stance on these matters. Supreme Court has to go – back to the Law Lords please.

I hope that either the EU will reject the Withdrawal Agreement Mark 2 or our own Parliament will reject it.
It is not actually leaving the EU and the obsession of this Withdrawal Agreement Mark 2 has with Ireland is a falsely manufactured situation, designed as a trap to keep us under the legal power of the EU for ever.

Acorn
If the EU offers the UK a deal and it is accepted then that is an agreed deal.
If the UK offers the EU a deal and that is accepted then that is an agreed deal.
There is effectively no difference.

This morning Sky’s Adam Boulton wheeled out Jonathan Powell, who was once chief of staff to Tony Blair, and he was allowed to claim that Boris Johnson’s proposal “imposes a hard border in Northern Ireland” without that blatant lie being challenged. Then he complained that the people of Northern Ireland had not been offered “the Norway option of remaining in the single market and the customs union” without it being pointed out that Norway is not in any kind of customs union with the EU. Then on the BBC an Irish journalist was allowed to suggest that if Northern Ireland left the EU customs union then that would be “re-partition of Ireland imposed by the British”, and when he was reminded that there is actually already a border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic he was allowed to get away with claiming “there is no economic border” even though the two parts of the island of Ireland use different currencies and have different taxation systems, a point which was also ignored during a brief interview with a florist whose shop is on the Republic’s side of the border but who gets supplies from the other side … all the time it is lies, deceits, misrepresentations, a flood of false anti-Brexit propaganda, and hardly ever does any of it get even feebly rebutted by the UK government, there still being only the same three outdated entries on the blog of so-called rapid rebuttal unit.

The referendum was held under the law set by Elections and Referendums Act 2000. A question was set in law and the people answered. Since that referendum, the remainers have retrospectively modified the question and all its supporting documents on several occasions. The surrender and traitor acts have not in any way complied with the law set by the Elections and Referendums Act 2000 – they themselves break the law.

In 1999, Brenda Hale followed Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss to become only the second woman to be appointed to the Court of Appeal (styled The Right Honourable Lady Justice Hale), entering the Privy Council at the same time.
this is part of the Oath that she took:
“You will to your uttermost bear Faith and Allegiance to the Queen’s Majesty; and will assist and defend all civil and temporal Jurisdictions, Pre-eminences, and Authorities, granted to Her Majesty and annexed to the Crown by Acts of Parliament, or otherwise, against all foreign Princes, Persons, Prelates, States, or Potentates. And generally in all things you will do as a faithful and true Servant ought to do to Her Majesty so help you God”

To delay our exit forever. To make the EU constantly appear all powerful. To teach other countries where people think about leaving a lesson. To convince the British we are useless. In 10 years we will still be applying for extensions.

I believe we will leave 31st Oct 2019, at 23:00 NO DEAL, BREXIT, WTO.
Then on 31st Oct 2019 at 23:20 the EU will graciously offer a FTA. and we should tell them, form a line in London, in about 4 years.

I hope Boris doesn’t start going backwards and forwards running to the E.U like Theresa May, it was so embarrassing to see. Boris just needs to say that’s the deal. If he doesn’t the E.U will see a sign of weakness and there’ll be further delay.

But listening to MP’s, including the DUP ones, they seem fine with the tweaks to the Backstop, and only the Backstop in the WA. We the British people, as witnessed on your site, are not fooled by this, we can see what the government is trying to do and do not like it.

Say bye bye to what little democracy we have left. The news says Boris will ask for an extension. This rogue Parliament has no integrity, so we know voting will be rigged one way or another from now on.

I am ashamed of, and disgusted with, our politicians. If I were younger I would be leaving the UK for pastures new.

You can forget about your ‘free trade offer’ we didn’t vote for it- we just voted to leave and if we don’t get ‘leave’- no if’s or buts- then we know for sure that democracy is not working in this country.

I should just like to say thank you for your efforts on our behalf. What the EU are doing reminds me of when Putin annexed the Crimea, invaded in common parlance.

Perhaps the most distressing part of the whole thing is that I no longer want to live in a country with these “Remain” people. I simply can’t understand how anybody can tolerate the behaviour we’ve seen from the EU, and many members of our establishment. I’m extremely unhappy about funding these people with my taxes.

Andy, Rubbish as usual from you. The EU took away the right for people to decide who should come to their own country – that’s your so-called “free” movement. My nation is not a pick-n-mix bag of sweeties.

Andy thinks that ”free movement” has something to do with spending a couple of months in ”furrin parts”.
He/she has never realised that there is a big world out there beyond the EU borders.
For goodness’ sake, Andy – broaden your horizons!

Chin up Oliver we will win this even if we have to play the long game.

I know we shouldn’t have to and quite frankly shocking what remainers and the liberal elite have done.

Second your taxes fund nothing. They destroy currency we spend first and then collect taxes later. We never tax and then spend. We are no longer on the gold standard so sleep easy your taxes will not fund these people.

A senior Downing Street source said: “The government will comply with the Benn Act, which only imposes a very specific narrow duty concerning Parliament’s letter requesting a delay – drafted by an unknown subset of MPs and pro-EU campaigners – and which can be interpreted in different ways.
“But the government is not prevented by the Act from doing other things that cause no delay, including other communications, private and public.
“People will have to wait to see how this is reconciled. The government is making its true position on delay known privately in Europe and this will become public soon.”

You can’t get a ”landslide victory” if the EU doesn’t allow you to have a general election. If we are sold out to the EU and if the status quo is maintained because it suits the EU masters, why should we be ”allowed” to vote in a Eurosceptic party?

It’s now all about winning a vote in parliament, BJ needs to win a vote in parliament before leaving and take back the control of parliament he is a few votes short, but labour MPs in leave areas want to show the labour party leaders what they think and vote with their votes to leave with or without a deal.

“The EU response to the Offer” – why, it is a characteristic response from the Franco-German Empire of course.

What I find fascinating is how people who support Remain do not see that in practice it IS just such an Empire, ruling all others. As we have seen many times now: “What Germany wants, Germany gets, and what Germany does not want never happens”.

Well, if there’s so much about these proposals that you like, we can be sure that they have no chance of leading to a deal. It’s just a cynical manoeuvre by the government, cheered on by you ERG fanatics. In 2017 the government committed to a permanently open border in Ireland with no infrastructure. So they’ve now gone back on that haven’t they? You’re always so anxious to see that people deliver on firm commitments that they’ve made…unless they’re people who happen to support Brexit of course!

About John Redwood

John Redwood won a free place at Kent College, Canterbury, and graduated from Magdalen College Oxford. He is a Distinguished fellow of All Souls, Oxford. A businessman by background, he has set up an investment management business, was both executive and non executive chairman of a quoted industrial PLC, and chaired a manufacturing company with factories in Birmingham, Chicago, India and China. He is the MP for Wokingham, first elected in 1987.